Page 28 of Dirty Money
And with that, the two became instant friends. One by one, they showcased, discussed, and complemented each other’s artwork before moving on to check out the competition.
Aullie was happy to find someone to tour the exhibits with, especially since that someone also happened to be much more social. Thanks to Maggie and her almost aggressive self-marketing skills, Aullie had met several people, some of them important and some of them just good, funny company. Before long, she had four glasses of champagne down the hole and she was feeling pretty dang good.
The pair met another artist who stood out even in a crowd of expressive artists. He had a short, neat mohawk dyed a dark navy blue, and swirls of colorful tattoos covering his lean arms. He was clearly proud of them, as he was sleeveless at what was technically a semi-formal event, and they quickly became a topic of conversation. A sparrow on his bicep carried a banner that read ‘Alberts’.
“What’s that one for?” Maggie asked. Aullie had only known the girl half an hour, and she could already tell Maggie was crushing hard on tattoo boy.
“Oh, that’s just my last name,” he explained. “Troy Alberts, isn’t that such a preppy name?”
“It’s not that bad,” Maggie said with a cute little smirk.
The girls followed him to his exhibit, an interesting collection of black and white paintings with ominous hidden skulls and roses with sharp, exaggerated thorns.
“I don’t know what it is,” he said. “Ever since I was in high school, I’ve just always loved that sort of gothic, traditional tattoo thing.”
“That’s super cool,” Maggie gushed. “Oh hey, Aullie look at this one!”
She pointed to a small painting, one of the few pops of color in his collection. It had a fiery orange background and a traditional tattoo-flash style skull laid over the top, surrounded by an erratic black border. Aullie had to admit it was beautiful, striking in a way, and it reminded her of a few of her own works.
“I just did that one for fun,” Troy said with a laugh.
“I actually really like it,” Aullie admitted. “Your lines are so clean. I’m always so sloppy.”
“Oh whatever,” Maggie rolled her eyes. “She’s awesome. Let’s go show him your stuff Aullie.”
She figured she didn’t have much say in the matter and was happy to have made some friends, so she followed them through the maze of the art show. All the walls jutting out of everywhere to increase surface area made what should’ve been a short trip take forever.
As they walked, Aullie peeked out of the corners of her eyes, checking for the little red stickers that meant a painting had been sold. They were sparse, but they were still there, and Aullie began to build up hope that maybe one or two would be stuck next to her paintings once they got there.
As they rounded the corner to her exhibit, her heart sank a little to find there were none. Such a vain hope, she thought, discouraged.
She tried not to let her disappointment show as Maggie gushed about Aullie’s bold color choices and expressive style.
“I really like this one.” Troy pointed to a particularly dark piece Aullie had done. The black background was overlaid by different sizes of geometric shapes, all in dark shades of green and purple. “The way it tricks the eye and skips around, it’s really profound.”
Aullie swigged the dregs of her fourth glass of champagne. Artists are such weird people, why do we always need to use such pretentious words to describe things? I really need to stop drinking, she thought.
“Thanks,” she caught her slight slur and reigned it in. “It was definitely a fun one to paint. That’s the most important thing for me, really. When you make it fun, it doesn’t feel like work, you know?”
“Yeah. I’m so ready to start selling some actual art, so I can stop my stupid job waiting tables,” Maggie said.
“I’m a waitress too! I totally feel the same way,” Aullie said.
Maggie said something else. Troy laughed. But Aullie couldn’t hear or speak or even breathe.
Standing in the corner, tucked back almost out of view of her exhibit, was Weston. She was completely sure of it. He hadn’t seen her, thank god. He stood there, a rocks glass of what looked to be scotch in his hands, talking to another man.
Aullie had almost felt overdressed in her fancy frock, but Weston almost looked ridiculous in a tailored tuxedo, considering that some of the people were just wearing nice jeans.
The man beside him was equally overdressed, he even wore an impeccably tied bow tie. The conversation between the men looked heated and got hotter when Weston’s jaw clenched and he leaned over the shorter man with a predatory scowl.
Aullie was surprised. Not only that he was there, considering her name only appeared on the show roster a few days ago, so he had no way of knowing she was there, but because his dress and his behavior were wildly out of place. Something was very wrong.
The man in the bowtie gritted his teeth and glared back at Weston but said nothing.
Aullie drifted away from her acquaintances. Their shallow conversation didn’t matter to her, and she hoped the crowd would help keep her hidden as she moved closer to hopefully hear at least some of what Weston was saying.
She hadn’t pinned him as the angry, intimidating type, but his body language was rigid and menacing and she wanted to know what was going on.
